{"id":27810,"date":"2021-08-21T12:18:39","date_gmt":"2021-08-21T16:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=27810"},"modified":"2021-08-21T12:18:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-21T16:18:39","slug":"payne-cruising-woodward-with-the-tesla-owners-club-of-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/payne-cruising-woodward-with-the-tesla-owners-club-of-michigan","title":{"rendered":"Payne: Cruising Woodward with the Tesla Owners Club of Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pontiac<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 It was surely the stealthiest Woodward car club cruise ever.<\/p>\n

The Tesla Owners Club of Michigan made its first official Dream Cruise tour Wednesday night, following in the tracks of countless car clubs before it: Corvette, Mustang, Viper, Cadillac, Trans Am\u00a0and many more.<\/p>\n

I was in the middle of it, the owner of a 2019 Tesla Model 3 Performance. I have been in other club cruises \u2014 Vipers, Mustangs \u2014 but never one like this. There was no earth-shaking revving of V-8 engines. No ear-piercing, smoky burnouts, no popping of clutches. Just an eerie silence as a smorgasbord of 40\u00a0battery-powered Teslas cruised through Pontiac\/Birmingham\/Royal Oak alongside their muscle-car peers while thousands of car fans looked on from lawn chairs.<\/p>\n

Whether consumers widely adopt EVs is an open question, but Tesla has earned its place as an all-American, dream-cruisin’\u00a0head-turner.<\/p>\n

How different was the experience? It\u2019s the first club cruise I\u2019ve driven autonomously. With my Model 3 in Autopilot, I could safely car-and-people-watch down Metro Detroit\u2019s main street while the system kept a cocoon around me. Eye candy was everywhere from Challengers to flame-painted Camaros to a Ferrari 488.<\/p>\n

And I was surrounded by Teslas as diverse as their drivers. Contrary to the EV stereotype of tree-huggers, Tesla owners are young, old, hot rodders, green freaks. It\u2019s the secret sauce that has made the Silicon Valley automaker not just a popular EV maker \u2014 but a coveted luxury brand.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The Tesla parade was led by Dan St. John, who drove all the way from Lafayette, Indiana, in his 2010 Roadster \u2014 the brand’s first EV.<\/p>\n

A veteran of Woodward who grew up in Ferndale, St. John is an enthusiast who drove a ferocious, winged 1970 Plymouth Superbird in his early cruising years. His weirdest ride was a Amphicar, an amphibious vehicle made in Germany and sold in the U.S. from 1961-68.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would go 7 knots in the water and 70 mph on the street,\u201d he remembered. \u201cIt was the worst vehicle ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been a Tesla convert since he bought the Roadster in 2010. The wee sportscar \u2014 essentially a Lotus Elise chassis propelled by Tesla batteries \u2014 seems antiquated compared to my Model 3\u2019s futuristic, iPhone-on-wheels tech. It can\u2019t even use Tesla\u2019s network of superchargers (the Roadster is limited to 240-volt plugs).<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it is really fun to drive. It was once my\u00a0daily driver,\u201d St. John said. He\u2019s owned a Model S and Model 3, too.<\/p>\n

Before following the Roadster\u00a0down Woodward, the Tesla faithful met at Dan Markey\u2019s garage at Pontiac\u2019s M1 Concourse car club. Markey is another Detroit motorhead with oil in his veins (he owns a Lotus Evora 400 and his wife a Tran Am) and Tesla in his heart. He\u2019s got a 1,020-horsepower Model S Plaid on order.<\/p>\n

Like their gas-powered Cruise peers, Tesla club owners shared stories around Markey\u2019s garage \u2014 but with a difference. There were no hoods propped up to show off gleaming valve covers and writhing headers. Instead, owners pulled out their phones to compare notes on the Tesla app or discuss the latest over-the-air updates.<\/p>\n

Ex-GM engineer Dick Amacher showed Cliff Olivero his favorite app for finding charging stations. The owner of a Ford Mustang Mach-E (the Blue Oval’s answer to the Model Y) Olivero was the only non-Tesla driver\u00a0in the group. But his big-screen EV fit right in.<\/p>\n

\"Erin<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Erin Oldford of Hartland stole the show with her 2020 Model X.<\/p>\n

Teslas are full of \u201cEaster Eggs\u201d like\u00a0digital whoopie cushions and Solitaire. But unique to the\u00a0X is a feature that plays the Trans Siberian Orchestra’s “Wizards in Winter” while flapping its gullwing doors. A DeLorean can’t do that.<\/p>\n

Shahbaz Pervez\u2019s 2019 Tesla Model 3 put on a show just standing still. The Westland resident had covered his EV with a camouflage pattern, then lowered it 1.5 inches and added sinister front and rear spoilers. As he rolled down Woodward, he looked like he could have won the Roadkill Nights drag races last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the coolest car I\u2019ve owned, though I do miss the sound of a V-8 or V-6,\u201d said Pervez, who also has Detroit muscle in his garage in the form of a Dodge Challenger and Dodge Durango.<\/p>\n

Not everyone is drawn to Tesla by its big screens or neck-snapping acceleration.<\/p>\n

Tesla Owners Club of Michigan President Chris Brigolin bought his first Tesla because he wanted a replacement for his Ford Focus that was easy on the wallet and didn\u2019t require visits to gas stations.<\/p>\n

Now piloting a Model Y, he plugs in every night, and shares his passion via his Dirty Tesla YouTube channel (\u201cdirty\u201d because he lives on a dirt road). He formed the Tesla Owners Club of Michigan, which has been sanctioned by the mother ship in Palo Alto, California.<\/p>\n

\"Teslas<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

While I enjoy taking my 470-horse Performance model to M1 track days, Chris \u2014 a self-described techie \u2014 is the rare Tesla owner trusted with testing the latest, Beta 9 Full Self-Driving (FSD) version of Autopilot. Check out his YouTube videos.<\/p>\n

Maybe was self-driving down Woodward, too.<\/p>\n

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pontiac\u00a0\u2014 It was surely the stealthiest Woodward car club cruise ever. The Tesla Owners Club of Michigan made its first official Dream Cruise tour Wednesday night, following in the tracks of countless car clubs before it: Corvette, Mustang, Viper, Cadillac, Trans Am\u00a0and many more. I was in the middle of it, the owner of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27811,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27810\/revisions\/27811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}